Improved Owls performance marred by crowd trouble

20 October 2012 01:33

Sheffield Wednesday remain in the bottom 3 in the Championship but they can take heart from a fine display against an in-form Leeds side on Friday evening.

The Yorkshire derby resulted in a 1-1 draw but had things gone the Owls way in the first half they could easily have ran out deserved winners.

Dave Jones’ side played some attractive pass and move football in the first 45 minutes with Ross Barkley and Paul Corry dictating the play in midfield but they had to wait until the closing stages of the half to take the lead, Jay Bothroyd heading home from Antonio’s long throw.

Prior to that Wednesday had made most of the running and had the officials spotted a blatant handball by Becchio in the penalty area which had denied the Owls a clear goalscoring opportunity then they could well have had an earlier lead and possibly a numerical advantage in terms of players as well.

Leeds came back into the game in the 2nd half but didn’t really threaten an equaliser before Michael Tonge’s sweetly struck shot from range drew them level with 15 minutes to go.

Unfortunately the match will be remembered for a number of unsavoury crowd incidents rather than the match itself. Most notably, a Leeds supporter disgraced himself and his club by running on the pitch and striking Owls keeper Chris Kirkland in the face following the away team’s equaliser. To his credit, despite the understandable shock, the Owls keeper was able to continue after receiving treatment. This was by far the worst but by no means the only sour note of the night. Early on in the match a large vocal proportion of the visiting support did their reputation no favours by singing vile songs in praise of Jimmy Saville and negative disgusting chants about Owls manager Dave Jones.

In the 2nd half a small section of the Wednesday support sunk to their level as they could be heard retaliating with chants about Turkey in relation to the death of 2 Leeds fans some years ago. This caused a number of the away fans to move towards the North Stand, threatening to get at their rivals. At this point a number of missiles including bottles and seats were thrown from the away end in the direction of the North Stand and the pitch.

These shocking scenes left a sour taste on what had been a lively and entertaining Championship game.